With rapid development of network communications technologies, terminals gain fast-growing popularity, and have become indispensable tools in daily life of people. An existing terminal already has a powerful processing capability and is turning from a simple communication tool into a comprehensive information processing platform.
Multimedia playing is an important aspect in extending terminal functions. Richness and high-speed propagation of network multimedia resources facilitate using a terminal to play a multimedia file. A user can use multimedia playing software in a terminal to play music or a video that the user likes when waiting for bus or in other spare time.
Currently, when a multimedia file is played by using a terminal, some multimedia playing functions can be quickly and conveniently controlled by using a side key, an external wire control earphone, or a Bluetooth earphone of the terminal, for example, controlling a volume, playing a previous song, or playing a next song.
After detecting physical indication information sent by a wire control earphone or a Bluetooth earphone, a terminal sends the physical indication information to a multimedia playing application, and the multimedia playing application converts the physical indication information into control indication information. Because the conversion from the physical indication information into the control indication information is executed by the multimedia playing application, correspondences between control indication information and physical indication information that are defined by different multimedia playing applications may be different. For example, two audio playing applications are installed in a terminal: an audio playing application 1 and an audio playing application 2. For the audio playing application 1, pressing a volume key of an earphone twice indicates switching to a next piece of music. For the audio playing application 2, pressing the volume key of the earphone three times indicates switching to a next piece of music. Therefore, when a same type of control is performed on different multimedia playing applications, different physical indications may need to be executed. Therefore, disadvantages of poor flexibility and user experience exist in a current solution for controlling a multimedia playing application.